Grey Coat A level artists meet Will.i.am

The following piece was written by Nina Wise about a recent very exciting evening event that 5 lucky Year 13 students :

On Wednesday 2nd May, we had the privilege of being invited to the Royal College of Art’s Innovation night at the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington. This was an amazing opportunity as we were one of only three schools invited to the event, with the rest of the attendees being graduates, designers, artists or friends of the RCA. We were incredibly excited to have been invited to this evening, and this only grew as we found out that the main speaker was producer, rapper and judge of ‘The Voice’, Will.i.am. We arrived at the venue and enjoyed a talk from J. Paul Neeley, Co-Founder & CEO of a metaphorical search engine, ‘Yossarian Lives!’ launching in summer 2012. After this short talk, Will.i.am took to the stage in conversation with Paul Thompson, rector of the RCA. The talk was incredibly inspiring, as Will spoke about several topics, including his philanthropic work that he is involved with in his own community. The conversation was thought provoking, with Will discussing how people don’t sell music anymore, they sell technology, as the two are now married together. Before the evening, I found it hard to comprehend why a music producer was speaking at a night about innovation, however, I left the building completely inspired by his words and with a new understanding of the work that Will is doing. There was also an article in the Evening Standard newspaper about the evening: